


Home, A Voice From Within, You're Not Alone

by boltschick2612



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltschick2612/pseuds/boltschick2612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor misses home, and Mattias is like a warm blanket, comforting and reminding him of everything he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home, A Voice From Within, You're Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this part with the intention of putting it in another story that I have yet to start writing. After I wrote this part, I decided that it would take away from the original story that I had in mind and I felt that this part could stand on it's own...so a story it became. When I originally wrote this part, I didn't intend for the two characters to be put together romantically, but I can now see that angle of the story. The title to the story was taken from lyrics from the song "Tumbleweed" by Puscifer.

Victor pounds on Ohlund's door with tears streaming down his face, same as they had been the previous eleven times he had beat down the door to Ohlund's hotel room.

At least once every couple of months since the time that Victor was drafted by the Lightning, he became distraught with the loneliness of missing his family and home, and racked with the fear of uncertainty over what the future in the NHL held for him. Victor was convinced that Mattias Ohlund was the only one that understood what he was going through, and it was always Mattias he turned to.

  
These feelings could be brought on by something as simple as Victor having a dream about his family, or just Victor being left alone to his own devices with too much time to sit and think. But it always came late at night, and always while they were on the road.

  
The team was in Montreal that night for a PreSeason game against the Canadians, and for most of the team, it was a home coming of sorts. Mattias knew that Victor seeing how happy they all were to be home while he had nothing of his own home to cling onto would send Victor into a tail spin. And he was right. 

 

The first time he came to him was only a few months after Victor was drafted. Ohlund was awakened that night by the sound of knocking on the door and sobs from the other side of it. He jumped up off the bed and crossed the room to answer the door and when he did, he found himself standing there puzzled at the sight of Victor Hedman just outside the threshold. He had no idea what the 19 year old Swede could want at that time of night.

  
Victor charged into the room with out being invited or offering any greeting. "He no get it. Stammer, he no get it."

Victor was speaking of his room mate, but any meaning outside of that was lost on Ohlund. Victor had not been in America very long, and his English still needed some work, but Ohlund had a feeling that even if Victor's English had been impeccable, he still would have not been able to make out what Victor was saying due to the sobs that were being expelled between his truncated words.

  
"Heds, Calm down," Ohlund said while walking over to the young defensemen and steering him towards the chair and gently pushing him down into it. He grabbed a chair from the opposite side of the room and parked it facing Victor. "Ok, what's going on? What does Stamkos not get?" Ohlund asked, trying to keep the tone of his voice soothing and calm as possible.

  
"What like to be here. Far from family and home." Victor's tears were starting to subside.

  
"Well, that did he say when you tried to talk to him?" Ohlund asked.

"No. Didn't try."

_"So that's that,"_  Ohlund thought.  _"I'm the first one he came to."_ Mattias stayed up that night talking to Victor until eventually he was calm enough to rest.

  
As the years went by, Victor's room mates changed and his English improved. It went from "He no get it. Stammer, he no get it" to "Bergie doesn't get it". This time it was "Brew would never understand." The only thing that never changed was the fact that Victor kept becoming a victim of fear and loneliness, and he always came straight to Ohlund, without even trying to make anyone else "get it".

  
This night when Victor came pounding on the door with tears streaming down his face, Ohlund let him in and simply asked "Do you want to talk about it, or do you just want to sleep?" Over the two years that this had been going on, Mattias learned that sometimes Victor wanted someone to talk to, and sometimes he just wanted somewhere to sleep where he felt safe and at home. "Sleep," Was all Victor mumbled, and he headed straight for the empty twin bed near the window.

  
Later that night, Mattias was sitting propped up in bed, flipping through a magazine and listening to the light sound of Victor's snoring. He was pulled from his thoughts by the sounds of Victor turning over in the bed.

  
At first, Mattias thought the young man was just trying to get more comfortable in the impossibly uncomfortable hotel bed, trying to fit his six and a half foot frame in the small space, until Victor's voice escaped him in an a voice that sounded uncharacteristically child like.  "I don't know if I want to do this anymore, Ohlly."

  
"What do you mean? Your career is just starting," Ohlund asked, puzzled as to where all this was coming from.

  
"I don't know if it's worth it. If all the pain is worth it."

  
Ohlund wasn't sure if Victor was referring to physical pain or mental pain, both which came with the territory of being in the NHL. "You sacrifice a lot, it's true. But you get a lot out of it, too. Especially someone of your talent."

  
"Please Ohlly. I may speak slow, but I don't think slow. I know how people talk of me."

  
Victor's last sentence took Mattias by surprise, and before he could muster up a reply, Victor was already on to changing the subject.

  
"Tell me all about how you grew up in Sweden," Victor demands.

  
Ohlund complied, starting to talk about his childhood, and Victor drifts off to sleep, a smile on his face.


End file.
